


with a little help from my friends

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - Original Flavor [15]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blankets and Pillows, Established Relationship, Fade Demons, Fear Demons (Dragon Age), Friendship, Gen, Homecoming, Implied Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Late Night Conversations, Literal Sleeping Together, Male-Female Friendship, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4917031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The companions hustle Kiriya home after a fight in the Western Approach, and Kiriya catches a bit of insight into her advisers' lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with a little help from my friends

Ghostly green, etiolated, faintly shimmering. She was so sick of Fade-touched green. It smelled like burned fur and broken bodies, like brimstone and dragon flames, and she’d give anything she had to stay well away from it.

Yet here she was, doing the exact opposite: here she was approaching the blasted thing, with the now-familiar burning pains shooting up and down her left arm.

Kiriya’s grip on her other blade tightened and she looked behind her: were the others in position? Iron Bull behind her, several arm’s lengths away; Cole nearly hidden against the sand on her right. The shadow that was Dorian, well out of the mouth of the rift, far to her left.

“Ready?” she called over her shoulder. She willed _power_ into the Anchor, grinding her teeth together as the pain began to increase. Void take her, she’d _never_ get used to that. She’d never like it. Horrifying thought. Why did the Anchor hurt so? And she’d had several mages take a look at it -- she’d had Solas examine her and all the answers came up to a big fat nothing.

It was the sort of extreme no-way-out situation that only left her frustrated and helpless and thoroughly _enraged_.

Well, maybe killing darkspawn and demons would help her with that last bit.

“When you’re ready, Boss,” Iron Bull growled behind her. 

And Kiriya extended her left hand to the rift: she threw her power into it, tension scratching down her nerves -- 

It was always sickening to watch as those blasted _holes_ opened and terrible shrieking things began to pour through -- Kiriya bit at the inside of her cheek and dove hard to the left, Iron Bull’s footsteps closing in on her as she drew her knives and flanked the incoming group of demons. 

“Stay away stay away _stay away_ ,” and it was strange that she could hear Cole so clearly, but that thought fled in the face of chittering slavering _gnawing_ things -- so Kiriya threw herself into her deadly dance. Pivot, twist, blade through the throat, blade into the mouth, pull out, shake the blood off. Rinse and repeat. Nothing and no one getting within her guard. She ducked, quickly, so Iron Bull could club an incoming enemy down; and she immediately repaid the favor by stabbing the next set of foes in the back.

Dark shadows rose swaying around her and she grinned, felt new strength trickling into her limbs, and she danced around Cole -- or was it Cole who danced around her? Either way, she caught his eyes and he smiled, just a little, before the two of them put their backs together and began to _whirl_ : they were a killing wind slicing through the ranks of their enemies, his blades and hers flashing in the desert sun, hacking away at legs and heads and _anything_ that wasn’t their allies -- 

“Big one coming through!” 

And that was all the warning Kiriya got before _impact_ \-- one moment she was rolling backwards and onto her feet, and the next she was face-down and there was sand in her teeth and hissing _right in her ear --_

No! Needle-sharp appendages and that joyous suckling hiss -- _Oh, such fears you carry around with you, such deep cracks in your heart --_

She opened her mouth and screamed and screamed and all that came out was the whimpering of a girl in a forest -- 

“Oh no you don’t,” she heard someone cry out.

Lightning! Out of a clear blue sky! 

And the terrible weight on her back left her, and her mind began to clear -- she looked up to see that Cole had rushed in to hamstring the demon while it was held in place by a blistering crackling column of pure electricity. Dorian, laughing, and waving a white _something_ at a running Iron Bull -- and she pushed herself to her feet, forced herself to walk to the rift -- 

“Incoming!” A gleeful shout, and Kiriya looked up as Iron Bull nimbly leapt into the air, as he dropped onto the struggling demon with a terrifyingly juicy _crack!_

And she held her left hand out to the rift and finally, finally, it closed, and she was left with sand and sky and the salt that was still on her cheeks. “I hate fear demons,” she muttered, attempting to scrub at her eyes. 

A bottle in front of her face. The familiar hue of a healing potion. “Before anything else, drink that,” Dorian’s voice said from somewhere above her. 

Ragged boots and an equally ragged sleeve, next to her, whispering, soothing. “You’re fine. You’re safe.”

She drank the potion and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees -- and then nearly cried out as huge, meaty fists wrapped around her shoulders and picked her up from the sand, then settled her very gently onto her feet. A wide grin and sunlight glinting off a familiar eyepatch. “Demons, huh, Boss,” Iron Bull said, shaking his head. “Kill all the fucking things.”

“Thanks for squashing it,” Kiriya said, accepting a bit of elfroot from Cole. 

She looked around at them and tried to muster up a smile. “Everyone all right?”

“ _We’re_ fine, if a little sweltering at the moment,” Dorian said. “You, though, you don’t look all that happy.”

“Well, what’s a few infinite seconds of endless fear between friends,” Kiriya said, making a face at him. It made her laugh, a little, when he made the face right back.

“Home, I think,” Cole said. “Come back here when you’re better.”

“I’m fine, I just got my brains scrambled for a moment -- ”

She drew back, suddenly, when Iron Bull peered closely at her. “I don’t like the way your eyes have gone jumpy,” he said. “I’m with the kid. Let’s get you home.”

“But -- ” she said, though she really wanted nothing more than a proper bath and a glass of wine and maybe several days’ worth of sleep.

“Everything will still be here when we get back.” Dorian looked around the barren waste with disdain. “Including, ugh, all this _sand_.”

She gave up protesting, then, especially when Cole slid his hand into hers and led her back to their mounts.

And was she imagining it, or were Dorian and Iron Bull whispering worriedly about her? She kept glancing back at them, right till they stepped back onto the path leading to Skyhold, and -- yes, they were walking closely together, enough for their hands to brush, but still looking at her with lines in the corners of their eyes.

How else was she to explain the fact that one of them had accompanied her on her night watches? How else to explain the part where they’d pitched their tent right next to hers? 

And not to be left out, Cole had taken to sleeping right in the door of her tent lately.

So she slid off her mount as they waited for the guards to open the gates to Skyhold, and waved them closer. What a sight they must have all made: Cole and Dorian leaning companionably on either side of Iron Bull’s mount. “I -- well. I’m too tired for fancy words,” Kiriya said. “But -- I need to say this. Thank you. I feel better now that we’re here.”

Nods and smiles and -- “Oh, good -- evening,” Dorian said, sketching a bow.

Kiriya turned, to the faint smile on Leliana’s mouth. “You are unexpected but you are welcome,” she said, in her low musical voice. “Inquisitor. I’d like you to come with me.”

“I’ll call a meeting in the morning,” Kiriya began.

She stopped when the other woman put a finger to her lips. “I merely ask for a moment of your time, and a little help.”

“All right?” And Kiriya looked back for a moment, to where the others were dealing with their mounts, then -- up and up and up. Familiar steps, and she expected to follow Leliana to either the rookery or to the War Room -- and then she blinked because they were now heading to another door, to _Josephine’s_ door.

A fire crackling softly to itself. Soft rugs underfoot that muffled their steps. Bookshelves that loomed like gently welcoming shadows. Facing away from the door was a long, low-slung couch -- and even in the flickering light Kiriya could see that the couch was occupied.

“Take these, but hush,” Leliana was saying, and she hurried across the room to a chest filled with blankets and pillows and -- 

Oh.

She’d never seen Josephine with her hair down before -- but evidently the woman had taken the pins out of her bun at some point, because her dark hair flowed freely around her shoulders and onto Cullen’s chest, her cheek tucked snugly onto his shoulder. 

Cullen himself was out of his armor: instead he was wearing a red shirt with some kind of embroidery on the collar, soft curves. 

And on his other side was Cassandra, who was leaning partly against him and partly against a cushion. Quiet snores issuing from her lips, and her arms crossed over her breastplate. 

Mutely, she followed Leliana’s example: she slid a pillow behind Cullen’s head and wrapped a blanket around Cassandra’s shoulders. Josephine, she saw, now had her feet tucked into another blanket.

Last, she picked up the wooden cups next to the sleepers’ feet and placed them on Josephine’s desk, before heading for the door. 

Leliana stood inside the room, while Kiriya tried to stifle a yawn in the corridor. “We’ve been talking strategy all evening,” Leliana said, after a moment. “And -- perhaps I can let this slip -- they’ve heard about your nameday. Some talk of presents might have come up.”

Kiriya thought she was too tired to blush; she touched her cheeks and felt them heating anyway. “You talked about me all night. This makes sense. After all, the others -- ”

“We worry. For you.”

“For which I’m grateful. And -- why aren’t you in there with them?” Kiriya added, after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Why do you think I’m still in here?”

And so Kiriya sighed, and clasped the other woman’s shoulder. “All of you, sleep in -- Inquisitor’s orders. We’ll convene after the midday meal.”

“Good night, Inquisitor,” Leliana murmured. 

“Good night -- my friends.”

**Author's Note:**

> The final section of this fic is inspired by [this lovely art](http://everkings.tumblr.com/post/108580215406) by [everkings](http://everkings.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


End file.
